The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838Gillman, James
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The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838
Gillman, James
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Critics -- Great Britain -- Biography; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
There was always 'this' characteristic feature in his multifarious
conversation--it was delicate, reverend, and courteous. The chastest
ear could drink in no startling sound; the most serious believer never
had his bosom ruffled by one sceptical or reckless assertion.
Coleridge was eminently simple in his manner. Thinking and speaking
were his delight; and he would sometimes seem, during the more fervid
movements of discourse, to be abstracted from all and every thing
around and about him, and to be basking in the sunny warmth of his own
radiant imagination."
The manuscript of 'The Remorse' was sent to Mr. Sheridan, who did not
even acknowledge the receipt of the letter which accompanied the drama;
he however observed to a friend, that he had received a play from
Coleridge, but that there was one extraordinary line in the Cave Scene,
'drip, drip'--which he could not understand: "in short," said he, "it is
all dripping." This was the only notice he took of the play; but the
comment was at length repeated to the author, through the medium of a
third party. The theatre falling afterwards into the hands of Lord Byron
and Mr. Whitbread, his Lordship sent for Coleridge, was very kind to his
brother poet, and requested that the play might be represented: this
desire was complied with, and it received his support. Although Mr.
Whitbread [27] did not give it the advantage of a single new scene, yet
the popularity of the play was such, that the principal actor, who had
performed in it with great success, made choice of it for his
benefit-night, and it brought an overflowing house. [28]
In consequence of the interest Lord Byron took in the success of this
tragedy, Coleridge was frequently in his company, and on one occasion,
in my presence, his Lordship said, "Coleridge, there is one passage in
your poems, I have parodied fifty times, and I hope to live long enough
to parody it five hundred." That passage I do not remember; but it may
strike some reader.
In a letter of Coleridge's to a friend, written April 10th, 1816, he
thus speaks of Byron:
"If you had seen Lord Byron, you could scarcely disbelieve him--so
beautiful a countenance I scarcely ever saw--his teeth so many
stationary smiles--his eyes the open portals of the sun--things of
light, and for light--and his forehead so ample, and yet so flexible,
passing from marble smoothness into a hundred wreathes and lines and
dimples correspondent to the feelings and sentiments he is uttering."
Coleridge, in the preface to 'The Remorse', states that the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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